Feds seek prison for ex-Greenwich pastor

Associated Press

Associated Press

Updated 10:22 pm, Friday, July 20, 2012

Father Michael Moynihan on the grounds of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Greenwich in 2003. Moynihan, who resigned in 2007 as pastor of the church, is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, July 23, 2012, in New Haven after pleading guilty last year to obstructing a federal investigation.
Photo: Bob Luckey, GT

Father Michael Moynihan on the grounds of St. Michael the Archangel...

NEW HAVEN -- A former Greenwich priest should be sent to prison for about a year for obstructing an investigation into his personal use of church money, federal prosecutors said.

Michael Moynihan, who resigned in 2007 as pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, is to be sentenced Monday in New Haven after pleading guilty last year to obstructing a federal investigation. Moynihan wants to be spared prison time, according to prosecutors.

"There is simply no excuse for a religious leader to knowingly lie and provide false documentation when an effort is being made to uncover facts surrounding off-the-book accounts," prosecutors wrote in court papers Wednesday. "The court should reject the notion that religious leaders or other types of white-collar professionals should be sentenced more lightly than the powerless because, for the former, the embarrassment of conviction alone is more devastating than it would be for those who have enjoyed fewer advantages in life."

A message left with his attorney Friday was not immediately returned.

His sentencing papers were filed under seal.

Authorities say Moynihan used about $300,000 of church funds to pay personal expenses, including credit card bills.

An investigation by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport found in 2008 that Moynihan could not account for church money he kept in secret accounts and engaged in a pattern of deception when confronted.

The FBI contacted church officials about the secret accounts.

The money that went toward Moynihan's credit card bills was part of $2.1 million in expenditures from two off-the-books accounts, but most of the money went to documented legitimate expenses or expenses that appeared to be appropriate, the diocese's report found.

The report offered few details on how Moynihan might have spent church money, but it cited $58,000 used to buy a boat, as well as restaurant and travel expenses and a livery service.

Moynihan also lied about the existence of the secret accounts and falsely claimed he reimbursed himself for a $1,000 scholarship to a child, auditors said.

Besides providing misleading information to church accountants, Moynihan lied to FBI agents in December 2010 about forging a signature on a letter, the U.S. attorney's office said.

At the time, he was aware that a grand jury was investigating whether he used parish funds for his benefit, officials said.

"His formidable educational background and religious training surely gave him a moral compass to recognize that lying to conceal the truth about his own conduct was seriously wrong," prosecutors wrote.

Moynihan was stripped of his priestly authority in 2008 after the Bridgeport diocese learned that he shared a New York city apartment with another man and failed to end that association despite promises to do so.